Boxscore Watch: Karl, Kobe and Thunderous Rebounding

Shocker: Karl is still a bad coach!

I almost didn’t have it in me to do this post. There’s only so much disapointment a fan can take. Co-Editor Devin Dignam — a Toronto Raptors…observer (he’s said he is dropping the fan label after the Calderon trade) — told me to go ahead with it. Alright, so let’s examine the insanity of George Karl yet again!

Let’s add some context. The Nuggets were missing Andre Iguodala, Danilo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler tonight. After a mere five minutes of play, the Nuggets also lost JaVale McGee to injury. If we look at the normal minutes these players play we have:

There’s already a bit of head scratching as to why these players (except for Chandler) aren’t getting more minutes. But onto a very ugly chart.

As always, this fan venting was made possible by a generous data contribution by PopcornMachine.net, a must for any boxscore geek.

Reminder to fans: The NBA Geek lets you see Wins Produced for all players!

Karl’s rotations were ugly and my Karl watch chart matches that. Let’s also make following note: you’d think losing McGee might convince Karl to play Koufos in the 4th. Nope! Karl would rather play Anthony Randolph, who he yanked after 3 bad shots his last appearance, instead of Koufos. Koufos has the 4th most wins on the team, behind Kenneth Faried, Andre Iguodala, and Danilo Gallinari, and is the 2nd best per-minute player behind Faried. What the heck?

Based on the four player Karl lost above he had to make up roughly 100 minutes. Let’s see how he did this:

Koufos and Faried are Karl’s two best players. Short handed, he played them a combined one minute less than normal! This makes no sense. Karl would rather play a virtually new roster of players that he hasn’t considered good enough to give minutes to all season!

I will say, Randolph actually looked promising. You know what though? Brewer looked terrible, as he has his entire career. Do I think this game will convince Karl to play Randolph more and Brewer less? Heck no! The injury gods tried to force Karl to actually give Faried and Koufos more minutes. Karl’s response was to just pick randomly from his bench. I summed this up to Devin on twitter

Kobe is averaging 21 shots a game. Tonight the game was almost 30 minutes over before Kobe recorded his first attempt! He did manage to finish the game with 8 total shots. It was not Kobe’s best showing (He shot 1-8 and also racked up 8 turnovers), but given that the opponent was the Suns it didn’t matter.

Rebounding Matters?

The Thunder lost to the Jazz. This is probably not good for the Nuggets as it seems more likely the Jazz could catch the Nuggets than the Nuggets can catch the Thunder. One thing stood out: seeing this loss I was prepared to point my finger at Westbrook for just chucking the ball a lot. I was disappointed. Let’s take a quick look at the box score through my eyes.

That’s probably a little hard to read (reading the box score in-depth is not actually made to be easy or fun), but here’s what we see: Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, the Thunder’s major shooters, shot a lot and shot well. How did the Thunder lose? Well the Jazz pulled down 12 more boards and beat the Thunder on Turnovers by 2. What’s more, the Thunder were able to block well, but not able to rebound that well. Blocks are good, because they keep the shot from getting to the rim. Except, if you don’t get the ball back, your opponent gets another shot. So, despite shooting a ridiculous 60.2% True Shooting Percentage, the Thunder lost to the Jazz because the Jazz got 19 more shots and that was mostly thanks to rebounding!

Summing Up

Karl’s terrible. Kobe was confusing. Shooting well wins game but only if you keep the ball. Sleep tight!

6 Responses to "Boxscore Watch: Karl, Kobe and Thunderous Rebounding"

Thank you for doing this Dre, I know it must be difficult finding the energy for it. Watching Karl make the same mistakes every night, season after season isn’t easy. It’s certainly taken a toll on me over the years. I gave up my season tickets way back in 08 after the lakers curb stomped us. That was 5 years ago and Karl is still here. Milking this franchise for every regular season win he can pad his record with. I honestly don’t know how much longer I can watch my beloved nuggets be held hostage by this madman.

You’re one of the lone voices out there calling out Karl’s terrible coaching. I fear that if people don’t make enough noise between now and the end of next season, Karl will be (god forbid) resigned to another 3 year contract. Which is a truly terrifying prospect. Please keep doing these nightly recaps of his lunacy, eventually the evidence against him will be irrefutable.

I made point about kobe Bryant yesterday about him not being able to get high assist games without a high amount of turnovers. He can’t be like magic Johnson because he doesn’t have the handle. The high turnover games will continue if he tries to be a playmaker. He lacks the skill to be an efficient one.

I’m actually fine with Iggy and Gallo only playing ~33 minutes per game, just because the Nuggets are a deep team (if you play the right rotations, anyway) and limiting everyone to that many MPG is reasonable during the regular season.

I agree with you on the rest, though. The lineups were baffling. GK has a bad basic rotation plan, but absent that plan he basically went to a completely random approach.